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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Is my MBA worth it?

I have just completed my MBA degree at a local institution which has lasted for 18 months and I thought I could share my experience with the program for the benefit of those who are interested to get one.

To begin with, there are always two sides of a coin. While there are people who are pro doing it, there are people who are against it on the other side. In this post, I will try to balance both views from my experience with the program.

My Experience

I started off applying for the program much younger during the days. I was 26 when I submitted my applications along with my GMAT score and was contemplating choosing between taking an overseas or local degree and the opportunity costs for each of the program. At the end, I decided on a local institution which allows me to complete the course on a part-time basis and they are located near the town area so I can commute easily after work. Even then, I postponed the admission until a year later due to marriage and job change factor during that year.

Midway through the course, I was juggling between work, school, family (with a kid) and blogging at the same time. There were some really busy times when I thought I would have given up but I did not. As a result of these grinding experience, I have become a much better allocator of time where I had to do things very productively with little time to waste. Until today, I still bring this to apply to my everyday life.

There are different set of objectives for the people who chose to do their MBA program. Some wanted to change career while others wanted to land an investment banking or consultant role or simply a higher paying job. For me, I wanted to improve on my self-efficacy throughout the program so I could be a better person myself. My objective was clear throughout the program so I just had to focus on it.

Thinking back, I have no doubt that taking the course have led me to become a more complete person. For instance, on soft skills, I had become more outspoken and confident giving presentations to the upper management which was not the case prior to the program. The fact that every single module in an MBA class requires at least one project presentation helped to mitigate the fear and get used to it. In terms of the hard skills, I started to look and analyze things on a deeper level and from a different angle, something which was not too apparent to me previously. Also, I learnt that for every decision I made had to be supported with justifications which in some way helped me in my investing because I no longer had to depend on gut feels.

Is the $69K MBA worth it?

However, to make the argument more logically balanced especially for those who are interested to get one, the MBA is not all rosy as what the media or internet suggested.

One of the biggest opportunity costs for taking the MBA is the tuition fees which does not come cheap. I paid $69K for the program over 3 instalments during the 18 month span and $69K can buy you many things, including knowledge. There are also people who will argue that you can learn the course online on your own. Through experience, I affirm that is a true statement. However, what you will miss is the interaction with fellow classmates and professors who will give you different inputs based on the same objective. You probably will also need to be really determined to learn things by yourself and not lose focus along the way. For me, the program was sort of acting as an enforcement to ensure that I adhere to all these commitments without losing focus to the external noises.

There are readers who have asked me previously whether the huge tuition fees is worth going for. To me, there are certain financial efficacies in life that should be prioritized first. Basic needs and emergency funds are one of those that I would place a greater focus above anything else. Once these financial issues are sorted out, only can we think about whether the tuition fees are worth going for.

There are also some people who think that the MBA is a gateway ticket to higher paying jobs. While to some extent that is true, many will be disappointed if the sole focus is on achieving a high paying dream job.

Overall, the MBA is a great program. Taking the MBA is akin to investing in growth companies with potential growth catalysts incorporated into the high target prices set by analyst. It will be up to us to ensure that our own intrinsic value match the expectations at the end of the day. Now, whether or not they are worth going for will depend on your needs, goals and financial situation in your life.
Are you game?

I was hoping that the skills learnt would have a multi-attitude impact to how I perceive things in life. I hope to become a better person that could impact this world by that little bit of things hopefully.

I think the best part of an MBA is the connection you've made. Hence the knowledge part, which is easily obtainable through self learning, is not the main point. If you've made a lot of connections while studying, that makes all the difference. Hence there's a lot of diff between taking an MBA overseas in a reputable uni compared to a local one. Maybe i'm just biased ;)

Before I started the program, I had the same thinking too that MBA is all about connection. But I realized that there is something more than that. In fact, throughout the course, I seldom interacted in seminars and events because I had to run other errands at the same time.

I must say that the knowledge I gained from the course is pretty well taken since I gained different inputs from people who come from different industry with faculty members who had PhD from all over the world. But still, knowledge is knowledge, it can't work alone.

Congratulations on completing your MBA, It is definitely not an easy course, but you have endured and completed it. Well done!

Money would be an issue for most people. When I was younger, I was thinking of whether to do a MBA or take a professional certificate like CFA. I chose to pursue the latter, because the CFA syllabus is quite rigourous and it helped to build my foundation in Finance. The MBA curriculum is more general in nature.

The MBA is indeed a more general program, but in life we do need diversity in every bit of knowledge in whatever we do. I did take CFA program too in the past and I must say the technical knowledge far outreach the MBA program. It's for a different needs I guess.

The MBA program does help in my career in the sense that I was ready to step into a more management position but I wasn't really going into that direction in the long run. I guess different sets of objective this time.

Many of the jobs do not appear to require any formal knowledge or education but if we take a look closer, they actually require a lot of the intangibles we don't see. Things such as hard work, perseverance are all things overlooked which we build upon in school.

I still think going to a formal education is important with the right purpose and intentions.

Many of my friends, colleagues, incl. my brother took MBA. Some think it can help them get a better job. Some want it to reflect on namecard. Some want to tell others they had masters! Some worked in a job with more time and decide put their excess time into learning something.

Ultimately, we must be adaptive to "learning" whichever ways, it is ok. But the reason must be valid suiting to each individual and better still if it for self-improvement. For getting an MBA is not the end, but start of a longer journey of "real world application"!

An MBA is definitely not the end its the beginning of something great, something I demand from myself to do better in my own self reflection over the next few years though it may not come necessarily from climbing the corporate office ;)

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